Fighting Hawks hockey took a couple “L’s” this weekend, as men and women couldn’t find a win against the first ranked teams in their conferences.

The lady Hawks put in a valiant effort against Wisconsin this weekend, falling in a close contest in game one against the Badgers 3-2 and game two 2-1.

The Hawks saw efforts in net from senior Lexie Shaw and sophomore Kristen Campbell who took a start in game two.

Game one, Shaw stopped 29 shots evenly over the three periods. UND put on near same amount of shots against Wisconsin’s Ann-Renee Desbiens who saved 28. The Hawks outshot the Badgers 15-3 in the third that is the first time this season that the Badgers had been outshot in that great of margin.

Both games saw some of the most physical play that the Hawks have been in this season, as both teams split 16 penalties in game one and 13 in game two.

Despite taking 16 minutes in penalties in game one, only one goal was scored on the power play in each game by Wisconsin and North Dakota, respectively.

The Badgers struck first in both contests but the Hawks never lost momentum, they pushed back to tie both games at 1-1 in the first period.

Game one saw an extra push for the Badgers as they were able to score twice in the second and hold a 3-1 heading into the third period. Tallying her fourth goal of the season

and bringing UND within one, sophomore Charly Dahlquist’s goal pushed the score 3-2 in the final minutes.

Head coach Brian Idalski pulled Shaw in the final minutes for the extra attacker but the Hawks couldn’t get passed Desbien.

“We always know that North Dakota gives us a good game,” Badgers senior defenseman Jenny Ryan said. “Regardless of how their season has gone, in the past years they always give us a tough game. It’s really a true test of our character and our strength that we need to battle though being close, which we’re maybe not used to, and battle through the physicality of the game.”

With Shaw taking the reigns in a majority of the games this season, Campbell has been making her presence known as of late by taking the start in game two in the last two series’ and proved to that she can hold her own.

Game two started off on a similar note, with the Badgers scoring first and the Hawks pushing hard to stay in the game. UND, who fell out of the top ten rankings last week held the Badgers to their closest game of the season at game two’s 2-1 loss.

The Hawks defense held the Badgers to their fewest shots on goal in a single game as well as fewest in a single series as well.

“It was definitely one of our tougher battles,” Ryan said. “We haven’t been tested like that in a long time so it showed a lot of character for our team to stick with it and get a goal late in the third and keep the lead and fight through adversity today.”

The sweep from Wisconsin put UND at 12-9-5 (9-7-4-2 WCHA) on the season as they head into next weekend’s split se ries against the Bemidji State Beavers. Game one is on the road in Bemidji, Minn.

Allyson Bento is the sports editor for Dakota Student. She can be reached at [email protected]